It is not wholly a question of price, although there is still much to desire on this point.
Ignorance, especially with the working-man's wife, will generally be found to be the cause of the aversion which many housewives have to the cooking of fish; even in middle and upper class households much ignorance as to the kinds of fish and the best means of making use of them prevails.
The poorer classes still regard fish as "nothing to make a meal of," and, sad to say, a great many of the poor of our cities will not eat fish, however cheaply they may get it. They have many advantages of getting it which those who live in superior neighbourhoods have not.
Often before the Central Market closes, first-rate cod is to be had for twopence the pound—a seven-pound cod for a shilling. Plentiful and wholesome as cod is, it is seldom much thought of by poor people. Salted, sun-dried cod, is thought beneath notice, although large quantities are consumed on the continent, and some very dainty dishes made therefrom. Plaice, too, generally to be had at fourpence the pound, is but lightly esteemed.
Humble Londoners care most for smoked fish, "something that has a grip with it," they say. To meet this demand many adulterations are practised by the cockney curer. "Haddocks" are often but indifferent codling. The "Finnan Haddie" was caught in the Scheldt, and Stavanger herrings are passed off as Yarmouth bloaters.
Unwholesome common lobsters, winkles, and whelks, are preferred to good substantial fish, and, as before stated, ignorance of the proper methods of cooking is most frequently the reason of this.
Where late dinners, with people of small incomes, are coming more into favour, it is found an economy, as it is also considered the "correct thing," to have a course of fish. Indeed, as an economical article of diet, fish has few rivals.
Many people who really would enjoy eating it are debarred from doing so by its being invariably badly cooked, or presented always in the same monotonous dress.
Phosphorus being essential for brain food, and as analysis has proved fish to contain a greater amount than almost any other article of diet, it is the more valuable still on this account.
The fish which afford the most nourishment are the kinds which most resemble meat, as salmon, mackerel, &c.; turbot and halibut, though strictly belonging to the "lighter" order, are very nourishing on account of the amount of meat which they bear in proportion to bone. The whiter kinds of fish are the most easily digestible, as soles or cod, whiting, &c., and some kinds of river fish, notably perch.